Product Description

A modern Cinderella and her cohorts are enchanted by love in Seattle. Cindy is forced into running her late father's muffler shop and employing horrid step-sisters, Annie and Zelda. Can she garner the emotional energy needed to protect her heart against Luke's princely charms? Annie Wilson's past misdeeds have tarnished her reputation. Can she prove to herself and Brent that she's a changed woman? Zelda is busy writing her own life story. Will it involve murder or romance? Farrah, Cindy's godmother, has caught a younger man's eye. How long can she deter his advances? Will God make these couple' dreams come true?

Publisher's Description

Cinderella lives—except her name is Cindy and she resides in Seattle! Cindy is forced to run her late father’s muffler shop. Will her step-sisters’ shenanigans and Luke Princeton’s charms only make her life even more unbearable? Cindy’s step-sister Annie has reformed her ways. But how will she prove it to the man she loves? Step-sister Zella is writing her own love story. But is she using a poison pen? Cindy’s godmother, Farrah, has caught the attentions of a younger man. Does she have the courage to love again? How far will God go to give these women a happy-ever-after?

Author Bio

Gail Sattler lives in Vancouver, BC, where you dont have to shovel rain, with her husband, three sons, two dogs, and a lizard who is quite cuddly for a reptile. When shes not writing, Gail is making music, playing electric bass for a local jazz band, and acoustic bass for a community orchestra. When shes not writing or making music, Gail likes to sit back with a hot coffee and a good book.

Book Description: A modern Cinderella and her cohorts are enchanted by love in Seattle. Cindy is forced into running her late father's muffler shop and employing horrid step-sisters, Annie and Zella. Can she garner the emotional energy needed to protect her heart against Luke's princely charms? Annie Wilson's past misdeeds have tarnished her reputation. Can she prove to herself and Brent that she's a changed woman? Zella is busy writing her own life story. Will it involve murder or romance? Farrah, Cindy's godmother, has caught a younger man's eye. How long can she deter his advances? Will God make these couples' dreams come true?

Review: Each story was a great stand alone. My biggest problem is that when I think of Cinderella, I am prone to not like the stepsisters. That took some time to deal with the other stories after Cindy. I also struggled at the start to get into the series. But once I did they took off and were enjoyable. I liked the fact that they did not try to gloss over the rocky relationship the girls had. They were quick and easy to read.

I would like to thank Net Galley and Barbour Publishing, Inc. for allowing me to read and review this book in return for a free copy and I was never asked to write a favorable review by anyone.

Another fun book in the romancing America series. This book follows Cindy and her step sisters Annie and Zella. The final story is about Farrah who is Cindy's godmother. Cindy deals with a stepmom who does not like her and trying to keep her fathers muffler shop going. Annie deals with someone trying to make her look bad and Zella who is trying to avoid her mother setting her up so she joins a book club. Farrah has just turned 50 and catches the eye of a younger man. Will these ladies find true love?

What I liked: I like how all the stories tie together and even though the individual stories are short it feels like a longer novel. The characters are likeable and fun to read about which adds to the books likeability. All these stories where written by the same author which made it nice as the style of writing did not change from story to story.

What I did not like: The downside to shorter stories is there tends to be a point in each story where suddenly things move fast or problems are resolved with out a lot of explanation which can leave the reader feeling a little cheated. Romancing America books don't do this as bad since the stories blend together but there was a few times in this book where I was like "that's it?". Each story deals some with the stepmom yet we never really get to know her and by the last story she is almost likeable. She was an odd character.

Over all I really liked this book and recommend reading this book as well as others in this line.

Who doesn't love a re-imagined fairy tale? Just the idea immediately enthralls me. It's always fun to see how many elements of the old favorite an author can parallel without making the whole concept seem hokey. At other times, the connection is so vague you'd never know it was there if someone didn't tell you.

When I heard that one of the Romancing America collections was a set of novellas with a contemporary Cinderella theme, it got my attention. Here's what they said: "Follow the road to the Emerald City where a contemporary Cinderella-esque cast wrestles with life and love. Will their dreams and wishes come true?"

At first blink, following the road to the Emerald City seems like blending the Wizard of Oz into Cinderella, but then I remembered that one of Seattle's nicknames is the Emerald City. Clever!

In this retelling, Cindy inherited a brake and muffler shop from her father, and she spends a lot of time there to stay away from her stepmother and two stepsisters. The stepmother is about as nasty as you'd expect from a retelling, but the author chose to redeem the two stepsisters. Here, let me tell you a bit about each of the novellas.

In "Cindy and the Prince," muffler shop owner Cindy isn't interested in Luke Princeton, the co-owner of a car rental business across the lot. Luke has eyes only for Cindy and is determined to win her love, even though her stepsisters, Annie and Zella, are equally determined to catch his eye instead. Everything comes to a head at Luke's annual business banquet.

The big question: are there glass slippers involved?

In "Love by the Books," Cindy's stepsister Annie is finished her bookkeeping course and has been doing the books for Cindy's muffler shop. When Luke and Brent's bookkeeper is unavailable, they ask Annie to look into a discrepancy in their ledgers. But when Annie suspects user error-possibly on purpose-the two men can't forget how Annie tried to sabotage Cindy not that long ago. Has she really changed as she says she has? Will Brent believe Annie before they get taken to the cleaners?

The third novella, "Till Death Do Us Part," features Zella, whose mother had so much fun coordinating Annie's wedding that she's determined to marry off Zella as soon as possible and sets her up with a blind date for Friday. In panic, Zella grabs the newspaper and points at an ad, saying she's part of a book club that night and can't go. When she arrives at the book club, she soon finds it's a writers' group and enthusiastically starts helping Trevor Jones figure out how to commit the perfect murder-on paper, of course. But her mother discovers some of Zella's research and is certain her daughter is in trouble.

The final novella is called "Never Too Late" and is the story of Cindy's godmother (no fairies in this one!), Farrah, who we met earlier. Luke's niece and a boy from youth group are determined to pair Farrah up with the boy's uncle, a veterinarian, as all parties volunteer at an animal shelter. Farrah is enough older than Matt that it doesn't seem right to her, but true love isn't dependent on the year of one's birth.

I received an e-copy of this collection for review from NetGalley. Opinions, as always, are mine alone.

Sattler has created a modern tale of Cinderella, her "wicked" stepmother and hateful stepsisters.

Cindy inherited half of her father's muffler shop when he died. Growing up in Seattle, Cindy had worked with her dad in the shop. Now an adult, she is determined to keep it going and make it profitable. She puts in long hours and Luke, the handsome owner of the car rental business across the parking lot, notices her too.

The other half of the muffler shop is owned by her ornery stepmother. To keep some peace in her step family, Cindy has hired her step sister Annie to help with the bookkeeping at the shop. When Luke asks Annie to help out at their business while their accountant is home sick, Annie finds some irregularities. Skeptical, Luke wonders if Annie is at least incompetent, and at most, a thief. But Luke's partner Brent has fallen for Annie and is determined to find the truth.

Cindy's other step sister, Zella, is frustrated with her mother's attempts to marry her off. On a whim, she decides to get out of the house on Friday nights and joins a book group at the local library. She finds out too late that it is not a group that reads book but one that writes them. She doesn't know it but the handsome man across the table is her favorite author who writes under a pseudonym.

Last is Farrah, the dear friend of Cindy's mother. She practically raised Cindy when her mother died while Cindy was young. Now fifty, she is resigned to a single life. The only love she had was diagnosed with cancer while they were engaged. He had called off the wedding, not wanting her to be strapped with the medical bills when his benefits ran out. She still feels the pain. Then she meets Dr. Matt, the veterinarian at the local animal shelter. They find they have more in common than love for stray animals.

The four romance stories form a nice collection. The characters are interwoven throughout as the overall story progresses. These are simple romances. There are no complex plots nor deep thinking characters. These are four light stories that will ease your mind. They are well done. Each one can be easily read in an evening, a pleasant couple of hours.

I received an egalley of this book from the publisher for the purpose of this review. The opinions expressed are my own.